Monday, May 20, 2013
Les aventures des hommes et des machines
Ludvik
Askenazy, “Les aventures des hommes et des machines”. Edité
en 1958
, Maison d'Edition Technique a Prague, a l'occasion de l' Exposition
Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles, 1958.
Labels:
Labour,
world fair
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Blue Bicycle
you
drop it right there
your blue bicycle
your blue bicycle
in the almost-grass of
april
and it sinks in
and it sinks in
just a little bit
like a tired dinosaur
like a tired dinosaur
the blue kind
i don’t know all the kinds
i don’t know all the kinds
you talk
about them a lot
but i always forget
but i always forget
David
Luetke
Sandwich People
Cubist
costumes designed by Ivan Puni as advertisements for his exhibition
at Der Sturm Gallery, Berlin, feb.1921.
Labels:
advertising,
exhibition,
fashion,
modernities
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The Hills
Purity, solitude? There. They are grey. Intact greys not even the idle foot surprised, supremely light. Greys beside Nothing, melancholy and beautiful, which the air shelters like a soul, visible
because so true to its object: waiting always. To be! And even more remote, for smoke, for eyes of the most distracted, a secure Nothingness: the perfect grey on tender aridness, grey of those hills!
Jorge Guillén
translated by Julian Palley
A Rabbit Displaying Churchill's Victory Sign
Labels:
Ideology,
illustration,
politics
Σκέψεις για το αντι-μανιφέστο μιας Σοσιαλιστικής Γλυπτικής
To 1923 ο Βλαντιμίρ Τάτλιν, σ' ένα ατέλειωτο σχέδιο, αποπειράθηκε ανεπιτυχώς να σχεδιάσει την παραγωγή μιας κατσαρόλας με πολλαπλές χρήσεις (τηγάνι και τσαγιέρα μαζί). Ασφαλώς δεν είναι η πρώτη φορά που διαπιστώνουμε την αδυναμία ενός σημαντικού καλλιτέχνη να είναι ταυτόχρονα και καλός σχεδιαστής αντικειμένων. Όμως αυτό που έχει περισσότερο ενδιαφέρον στην περίπτωσή του είναι οι ιδεολογικές αντιφάσεις που βρίσκονται στην καρδιά της σοβιετικής πρωτοπορίας (και όχι μόνο). Ο Τάτλιν στη διάρκεια των χρόνων της Οκτωβριανής Επανάστασης, μαζί με άλλους στρατευμένους συντρόφους, απορρίπτει τα παραδοσιακά εκφραστικά μέσα και μ' ένα προγραμματικό, διακηρυγματικό λόγο μέσω δημοσιεύσεων ανακοινώνει το πάθος του για τα αντικείμενα καθημερινής χρήσης που θα είναι πολύτιμα στο χαμηλόμισθο εργάτη. Μπορεί κάποιοι από το στενό κύκλο των Προντουκτιβιστών να τα καταφέρνουν καλύτερα -όπως στη περίπτωση των σχεδιαστικών εφαρμογών της Stepanova και της Popova στη βιομηχανία των υφασμάτων - όμως η δυσκολία του εμπνευστή του μνημείου της Τρίτης Διεθνούς να θέσει τον εαυτό του αποκλειστικά στη βελτίωση των συνθηκών των εργατών έχει ειδικό ενδιαφέρον, γιατί αποτελεί διακαή πόθο κάθε καλλιτέχνη που ονειρεύεται να έχει τη δεξιοτεχνία ενός Ηφαίστου και να απολαμβάνει ταυτόχρονα τις τιμές ενός Απόλλωνα. Ο καθένας από τη συντεχνία των εικαστικών θέλει κατά βάθος να είναι ο maitre της εμμονής του είτε πρόκειται για μάρμαρο είτε για τσόχα, ακόμα και αν αυτό ερμηνεύεται με τους σημερινούς όρους μιας σημειωτικής «επένδυσης» και λιγότερο ενός απτού υπολογίσιμου υλικού με βάρος και διαστάσεις.
Σε κάθε εικαστική απόπειρα για τη συνένωση του υψηλού και του μαζικού αντιστοιχούν εκατοντάδες επιτυχημένες εφαρμογές από εμπνευσμένους επαγγελματίες σχεδιαστές που προσέφεραν πρακτικές λύσεις σε εκατομμύρια πολίτες στις νεωτερικές κοινωνίες. Η Christina Kiaer, ιστορικός που ειδικεύεται στη σοβιετική τέχνη, αναφέρεται στην αδυναμία του άλματος του Τάτλιν από την πρωτοπορία της γλυπτικής στον επιτυχημένο σχεδιασμό για τηγάνια, κατσαρόλες και φούρνους. Αλλά το ερώτημα μπορεί μονάχα να περιοριστεί στην αναποτελεσματικότητα του Τάτλιν να παράξει κάτι που να είναι χρηστικό, ή μήπως είναι ένα γενικότερο σύμπτωμα της ανισόρροπης σχέσης της κομμουνιστικής ιδεολογίας (όπως και της υπόλοιπης στρατευμένης πρωτοπορίας) με την εμπειρία της «κατοικίας»; Η πρακτική της καθημερινότητας για έναν ριζοσπάστη ντανταϊστή, φουτουριστή ή κονστρουκτιβιστή φιλοξενείται στις κραυγές και τις διαμαρτυρίες στις διαδηλώσεις, τη ρητορική από το βήμα, τις αντιπαραθέσεις στα νεανικά καφενεία και τις αναμενόμενες συγκρούσεις στο πολιτικό και κοινωνικό πεδίο. Η σύγκλιση τέχνης και ζωής εκλαμβάνεται ως μια μακρινή διαδρομή από το σπίτι, όπου τα προπαγανδιστικά περίπτερα, τα εργοστάσια, οι κοινωνικοί και οι κοινόχρηστοι χώροι έχουν αντικαταστήσει τη σταθερή τοπολογία του οικογενειακού βίου.

Ο αρχικός προσδιορισμός μέσω της σοβιετικής γραμματολογίας, παρόλη την ιστορική φόρτιση με τα κείμενα του Arvatov, αφορούσε στην κυρίαρχη φιλοδοξία των προντουκτιβιστών να μεταφέρουν τον καλλιτέχνη άμεσα στην αλυσίδα της μαζικής παραγωγής, ταυτίζοντάς τον με τη διαδικασία της εργασίας. Το «σοσιαλιστικό αντικείμενο» ως όρος, γεννήθηκε μέσα σε αυτές τις συνθήκες ριζικής αναθεώρησης της αστικής εκτίμησης του εικαστικού έργου. Ένα λοιπόν από τα ερωτήματα που με απασχολούν αφορά στις συνθήκες παραγωγής του «σοσιαλιστικού αντικειμένου».
Η πρότασή μου διαφέρει από το πλαίσιο που το σοσιαλιστικό αντικείμενο ερευνάται από το ζεύγος Arvatov-Tatlin. Αφορά στην υλοποίηση του σοσιαλιστικού αντικειμένου ως γλυπτό χωρίς την υπαγορευμένη συσχέτισή του με τη μαζική του εφαρμογή και την άμεση χρηστικότητα. Μπορούμε να υποστηρίξουμε σοσιαλιστικά αντικείμενα-κατασκευές όπου η δομή τους προβάλλει αξίες που σχετίζονται με τις συνθήκες εργασίας του καλλιτέχνη ως τεχνίτη χωρίς να αποσκοπούν σε οποιαδήποτε εργαλειακή χρήση; Εν ολίγοις αποσκοπώ σ' ένα γλυπτό που θέτει ζητήματα ιδεολογικής ταυτότητας και που γίνεται αντιληπτό ως ένα «πολιτισμικό αντικείμενο» προς ενατένιση, χωρίς κάποια προγραμματική εφαρμογή. Η υλοποίηση μιας τέτοιας συνθήκης βοηθά στην ακύρωση της διαφοράς ανάμεσα στον καλλιτέχνη και τον τεχνίτη ορίζοντας την άμεση και στενή συνάρτηση του ύφους και του ήθους του επαγγέλματος με την ταξική ή έστω τη γνωστή «τοξική» ιδιότητα (με την έννοια της νευρωτικής επαλήθευσης της ταξικής θέσης). Ο καλλιτέχνης στις συνθήκες που προανέφερα στην καθημερινή του ενασχόληση με το métier, είναι «προλετάριος» ανεξάρτητα από την οικονομική και κοινωνική του συνθήκη εφόσον καταβάλλει φυσικό πόνο και παράγει αντικείμενα. Επιπρόσθετα τη δική μου συνθήκη που μοιράζονται πολλοί εικαστικοί, τα υλικά που επιλέγονται και η μη ραφιναρισμένη αντιμετώπιση των χαρακτηριστικών τους σε συνδυασμό με την άμεση κατάδειξη της δομής τους δεν αφήνουν περιθώρια για την αποθέωση του γλυπτού ως φετιχιστικού προϊόντος ή της αποδοχής του ως «υψηλό έργο τέχνης», τουλάχιστον με τους όρους που χρησιμοποιούσαμε μέχρι πρόσφατα. Πρόκειται στο σύνολό τους για υπολείμματα από βιοτεχνικές και εργοστασιακές δραστηριότητες, αποσπάσματα, ασχηματοποίητα υλικά που επανασχηματοποιούνται και συναρμολογούνται με στόχο την επιβεβαίωση της μεταβιομηχανικής τους δομής, η οποία δεν μπορεί παρά να χρησιμεύει ανάμεσα σε άλλα και ως ένα εργαλείο ιδεολογικής επιβεβαίωσης.
Το σοσιαλιστικό γλυπτό δεν προκύπτει λοιπόν σήμερα μέσα στην ατμόσφαιρα της ταιλορικής δομής υπονομεύοντας έτσι την καθοδήγηση της κουλτούρας του εργοστασίου, δεν προσφέρει λύσεις πρακτικές, αλλά την ίδια στιγμή ανοίγεται στο παιχνίδι της ενατένισης και του στοχασμού, χωρίς τις γνωστές συμβάσεις μιας γλυπτικής που φαίνεται να έχει παραχθεί για να αποκρύψει τις προλεταριακές της δομές.
Το σοσιαλιστικό γλυπτό δεν προκύπτει λοιπόν σήμερα μέσα στην ατμόσφαιρα της ταιλορικής δομής υπονομεύοντας έτσι την καθοδήγηση της κουλτούρας του εργοστασίου, δεν προσφέρει λύσεις πρακτικές, αλλά την ίδια στιγμή ανοίγεται στο παιχνίδι της ενατένισης και του στοχασμού, χωρίς τις γνωστές συμβάσεις μιας γλυπτικής που φαίνεται να έχει παραχθεί για να αποκρύψει τις προλεταριακές της δομές.
Labels:
design,
Labour,
modernities,
Russian avant-garde,
sculpture
The University Bookman: On Avoiding ‘Prosperous Wickedness’
What Good Luck! What Bad Luck!
Labels:
design,
illustration
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Landfall
And
indeed I shall anchor, one day—some summer morning
of sunflowers
and bougainvillaea and arid wind—
and smoking a black cigar, one
hand on the mast,
turn, and unlade my eyes of all their cargo;
and
the parrot will speed from my shoulder, and white yachts
glide
welcoming out from the shore on the turquoise tide.
And
when they ask me where I have been, I shall say
I do not remember.
And
when they ask me what I have seen, I shall say
I remember nothing.
And
if they should ever tempt me to speak again,
I shall smile, and
refrain.
Randolph
Stow, 1969
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Who Might Rebuild
Kostis Velonis, (Ecclesia) Who Might Rebuild, 2013
5 m L, Plywood, wood, hammers. "Direct Democracy", Installation viewMUMA /Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australi
Labels:
exhibition,
Labour,
my stuff,
sculpture
Friday, April 26, 2013
"Direct Democracy" Show
Direct
Democracy
explores the changing nature of our engagement with the democratic
tradition and looks to the emergence of new democratic models. The
exhibition reflects contemporary social movements, unrest and the
desire for change; modelling key social dynamics and possible
futures. In Direct
Democracy
destruction and resistance are connected with the need to collaborate
and rebuild. Recent political shifts such as the Arab Spring, the
global financial crisis and movements such as Occupy are considered
in relation to earlier struggles for autonomy and self-definition, as
well as the interplay of constructive and corrosive dynamics in
leadership and governance. The exhibition examines the shifting forms
of political agency, in both emerging and foundational democracies.
Direct
Democracy
continues MUMA’s ongoing series of thematic and discursive
exhibitions, such as Networks
(Cells & Silos)
and Liquid
Archive.
Curated by MUMA’s Senior Curator Geraldine Barlow, Direct
Democracy
features the work of a number of international artists together with
artists and artist collectives from Australia.
Milica Tomić, One Day, instead of one night, a burst of machine-gun fire will flash, if light cannot come otherwise (Oscar Davico, fragment from a poem). Dedicated to the members of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative – Belgrade, 3 September 2009. Photo by Srdjan Veljovic.
Artists:
Laylah Ali, Hany Armanious, Natalie Bookchin, A Centre for
Everything, DAMP, Destiny Deacon, Alicia Frankovich, Will French,
Alex Martinis Roe, Andrew McQualter, John Miller, Alex Monteith,
Raquel Ormella, Mike Parr, Simon Perry, Carl Scrase, Milica Tomic,
Kostis Velonis, Jemima Wyman.
Curator: Geraldine Barlow
Monash
University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia
26
April - 6 July 2013
| MUMA
Labels:
exhibition,
my stuff,
sculpture,
Social History
Στις εκλείψεις ζευγαρώνει η τέχνη
Στην
έκθεση αυτή τίθεται το ερώτημα της
δημιουργίας μέσα σε δυσοίωνους καιρούς
πως δηλ. το ημίφως που προκύπτει από την
έκλειψη που είναι η συνάντηση ετερόκλητων
στοιχείων του ήλιου με τη σελήνη.
The Individual and the Mass (ou nous irons jusqu’au bout), 2011, 50 x 70 cm, printings
Η
έκθεση θα πλαισιωθεί από την χορευτική
παράσταση Τρία
δωμάτια / έξοδος, σε σκηνοθεσία Μάκη
Φάρου και Αλίκης Καζούρη, η οποία θα
λάβει χώρα στις 3 Ιουνίου 2013 καθώς και
μια ανοιχτή για το κοινό συζήτηση στις
30 Μαιου 2013, 19:00 όπου θα μιλησουν οι:
Γιώργος Χαρβαλιάς - Πρυτανης ΑΣΚΤ, Πάνος
Χαραλάμπους - Αντιπρυτανης ΑΣΚΤ, Κωστης
Βελώνης - Εικαστικος, Χριστίνα Πετρηνού
- Επιμελήτρια της έκθεσης.
Συμμετέχοντες
Καλλιτέχνες: Κωστής Βελώνης, Μάρθα
Δημητροπούλου, Λίζη Καλλιγά, Απόστολος
Καρακατσάνης, Κώστας Μπασάνος, Ελένη
Μυλωνά, Ζάφος Ξαγοράρης, Αλίκη Παλάσκα,Μαρία
Παπαδημητρίου, Μάκης Φάρος, Πάνος
Χαραλάμπους, Γιώργος Χαρβαλιάς
17.5
– 11.6.2013
Labels:
exhibition,
my stuff
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Designing the magazine "Utopia", 1921
Analysis
of Old Masters , lithograph by Friedl Dicker and Johannes Itten,
no10 from Bruno Adler, ed., Utopia. Dokumente der Wirklichkeit
(Utopia:Documents of reality, Weimar, 1921)
Labels:
design,
modernities
To read only children's books
To
read only children's books, treasure
Only
childish thoughts, throw
Grown-up
things away
And
rise from deep sorrows.
I'm
tired to death of life,
I
accept nothing it can give me,
But
I love my poor earth
Because
it's the only one I've seen.
In
a far-off garden I swung
On
a simple wooden swing,
And
I remember dark tall firs
In
a hazy fever.
Osip
Mandelshtam, 1908
Translated
by James Greene
Group Mountain
Kostis Velonis, Athens Community in the Kibbutz (paper, marble, ceramic, wood, acrylic, brick, 2011)
The
Breeder presents the exhibition Group Mountain by artist and
architect Andreas Angelidakis.
At
the core of the exhibition is a monumental work by Andreas
Angelidakis that consists of cardboard boxes of art shipping
companies. Their accumulation seems to be the result of continuous,
obsessive buying. Angelidakis has incorporated within the
installation of Group Mountain his video “Domesticated Mountain”
(2012) as well as a group exhibition with works on paper which he has
curated.
Group
Mountain is inspired Habitat 67 a model community and housing complex
in Montreal, Canada designed by Israeli–Canadian architect Moshe
Safdie. It comprises 354 identical, prefabricated concrete forms that
create residences with many communal spaces which integrate the
benefits of suburban homes, namely gardens, fresh air, privacy, and
multilevelled environments, with the economics and density of a
modern urban apartment building. It was believed to illustrate the
new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around
the world but it ended up as another lost utopia of the 60s.
Andreas
Angelidakis has developed an artistic voice that switches between the
languages of architecture, curating, writing and internet. He often
speaks about spaces, buildings and the society that inhabits them,
with the exhibition format acting as vehicle for ideas and medium for
his artistic practice. His exhibitions challenge the viewer both in
terms of their content their format, and the constantly shifting role
of the exhibition maker.
The
participating artists in the group show which is included in Group
Mountain are the following: Danai Anesiadou, Vlassis Caniaris, Kate
Davies, Antonis Donef, Uwe Henneken, HOPE, Jim Lambie, Yiorgos
Lazongas, Bjarne Melgaard, Alan Michael, Irini Miga, Angelo Plessas,
Paola Revenioti, Shirana Shahbazi, Christiana Soulou, Gert & Uwe
Tobias, Alexandros Tzannis, Jannis Varelas, Kostis Velonis.
Group
Mountain (cur.by Andreas Angelidakis)
The
Breeder Gallery, Athens
20
Apr.-29 Jun.
Labels:
architecture,
exhibition,
Exhibition Design
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Can Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century-Review
The
nation state, the construct that has dominated global politics
and diplomacy for two centuries, can no longer meet the needs of
citizens. This is the stark conclusion of a former high-flying
British diplomat who quit the Foreign Office in disgust over Iraq and
who has since worked with emerging governments in trying to assert
themselves on the world stage.
y
the book
Carne
Ross
takes up where Naomi
Klein,
Noreena
Hertz
and others left off. This is an impassioned, idealistic critique of
the state of global politics and the deepening rift between those
with power and those without. One of the book's strengths is that he
seeks solutions, though I wasn't always persuaded of their
effectiveness.
Most
of all this is a mea culpa. It is refreshing for a non-fiction author
to be so brutal about himself. Ross was one of an elite corps of
diplomats, fast-tracked to a high position at a relatively young age.
He would probably have received a top ambassadorship – with all the
baubles of status and comfort that he admits he found attractive –
had he not jumped ship.
As
the lead official at Britain's mission at the United Nations in New
York dealing with Iraq, Ross was responsible for implementing policy
on weapons of mass destruction and the pre-war sanctions regime. He
contends that the Brits and their allies knew pretty much all along
that Saddam Hussein did not possess significant WMD. Therefore, in
his view, the sanctions were unjustified punishment of a people who
suffered widespread privation. Ross cites experts' estimates of an
"excess mortality rate" of over 500,000 children under the
age of five. "Though Saddam Hussein doubtless had a hand too, I
cannot avoid my own responsibility. This was my work; this is what I
did."
It
is when people feel dissociated from the consequence of their actions
that harm is done. The author recalls Stanley Milgram's famous
laboratory experiment from
the 1960s, which showed how easily humans could obey orders to
torture, giving electric shocks to other participants. This, Ross
argues, showed not just the pernicious effects of authority upon
moral conduct, but something even more revealing: "the fact that
the volunteers who administered the electric shocks, crucially, were
told that they had no responsibility for the results".
At
the heart of the corrosion of public life is the time-old
relationship between politics, power and money. Ross details the
pernicious influence of lobbyists, which he argues pervades Whitehall
as much as it does Washington DC. While the argument is not new, the
details are engaging. From McDonald's to Pepsi, from Kraft Foods to
BP, rules were bent to accommodate corporate interests. I was
particularly struck by the exemption
granted to Wrigley chewing gum during the imposition of sanctions
against Iran. The gum, Ross tells readers, "was classed as
'humanitarian aid' and thus exempt from sanctions, permitting
millions of dollars of sales".
Yet,
in its desire to cover the gamut of evil-doing, the narrative loses
impact. One minute readers are taken to Kosovo, the next they are
told about David Cameron's Big Society. Then from Iraq they are in US
healthcare. Still, this is an important contribution to the debate.
Ross bravely advocates the term
anarchism
(a positive absence of distant, top-down leadership), which he
differentiates from anarchy, the absence of rules and the onset of
chaos. He seeks a new form of engagement which borrows from the right
an appeal to individual enterprise and self-expression, and from the
left a sense of solidarity and community.
He
concludes with a nine-point manifesto for citizens to regain control
of the decisions that affect their lives. It includes: work out the
priorities that affect you and pursue them; identify "who's got
the money and who's got the gun" (in other words, where the
power resides); do what you can when you can (for example, don't wait
for asylum policy to improve); help an affected family (as his
parents did first for a Czechoslovak student escaping the Soviets,
and 30 years later for a Zimbabwean fleeing Mugabe).I am not
convinced that they add up to a whole, but the individual parts are
compelling.
It
comes down to on-the-ground change. The most illuminating example
Ross cites is the experiment
conducted in Porto Alegre.
In 1989 the Brazilian city was one of the most unequal in Latin
America. It then embarked upon "participatory budgeting",
with citizens encouraged to join debates about local spending
priorities. Some 50,000 of its 1.5 million citizens take part.
Apparently the number of schools has increased fourfold, while
provision of sewerage and water is now comprehensive.
His
message to the elite is that if they do not listen and act, they will
face the consequences: "The less people have agency – control
– over their own affairs, and the less command they feel over their
futures and their circumstances, the more inclined they are to take
to the street."
Text by John
Kampfner
Source :
Source :
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Monday, April 1, 2013
The “Latin Empire” should strike back
Detail
from the 2nd century Portonaccio sarcophagus, representing a battle
between Romans and Germans.
Italian
philosopher Giorgio Agamben has revived the idea of a union of
Southern European countries, a proposal first launched by another
philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, just after World War II. This "Latin
Empire" could act as a counter weight to the dominant role
played by Germany in the European Union.
In
1945, Alexandre Kojève, a philosopher who was also a high-level
French civil servant, wrote an essay called The
Latin Empire: Outline of a doctrine for French policy.
This essay [in fact a memo to the head of the Provisional Government,
General Charles de Gaulle] is so topical that it is still of great
interest today.
Showing
amazing foresight, Kojève maintained that Germany would soon become
Europe's main economic powerhouse and that France would be reduced to
a secondary power within Western Europe. He also lucidly predicted
the end of nation states that had, until then, determined European
history. As the modern state had emerged with the decline of feudal
political formations and the emergence of nation states, so the
nation state would inevitably cede the way to political formations,
which he called "empires", that would transcend national
borders.
These
empires could not be based, Kojève argued, on abstract units that
were indifferent to genuine cultural, lifestyle and religious ties.
Empires – like the "Anglo-Saxon Empire" (United States
and United Kingdom) and the Soviet Empire which he could see for
himself at the time — had to be "transnational political units
but that were formed by kindred nations".
This
is why Kojève proposed that France should play a leading role in a
"Latin Empire" that would economically and politically
united, with the consent of the Catholic Church whose traditions it
would inherit, the three major nations whose languages are derived
from Latin (France, Spain and Italy), while at the same time opening
up to the Mediterranean nations. According to Kojève, Protestant
Germany, which would soon become the richest and most powerful
European nation (which it did, in fact, become) would inevitably be
swayed by its extra-European tendencies and turn towards the
Anglo-Saxon Empire — a configuration in which France and the Latin
nations would remain a more or less foreign body, obviously reduced
to the peripheral role of a satellite.
Today,
now that the European Union has been formed by ignoring the concrete
cultural links that exist between nations, it might be useful – and
urgent – to revive Kojève's proposal. What he forecast has turned
out to be true. This Europe that strives to exist on a strictly
economic basis, abandoning all true affinities between lifestyles,
culture and religion, has repeatedly shown its weaknesses, especially
at the economic level.
The
EU's so-called unity is beginning to crack and one can see to what it
has been reduced: the imposition on the poorest majority of the
interests of the richest minority. And most of the time, these
interests coincide with those of a single nation, which nothing in
recent history should encourage us to see as exemplary. Not only is
there no sense in asking a Greek or an Italian to live like a German
but even if this were possible, it would lead to the destruction of a
cultural heritage that exists as a way of life. A political unit that
prefers to ignore lifestyles is not only condemned not to last, but,
as Europe has eloquently shown, it cannot even establish itself as
such.
If
we do not want Europe to inevitably disintegrate as many signs seem
to indicate it is, it would be appropriate to ask ourselves, without
delay, how the European Constitution (which is not a constitution
under public law, but rather an agreement between states, either not
submitted to a popular vote or – as in France – flatly rejected
[by 54.67 per cent of French voters]) can be reconfigured anew.
We
could, thus, attempt to turn political reality into something similar
to what Kojève called a "Latin Empire".
26
March 2013, Libération,
Paris.
Labels:
Ethics,
Social History,
tribes
Sunday, March 31, 2013
The Madness of Puppets
What
is this thing that I recognize, that seems to know me, when I come
upon it on a street corner, in a park, or in the shadows of a
theater, moving up on that small stage? What is this creature that
burrows out of shadows, into the light, a remnant of something,
hardheaded, often squeaking and ugly, moving with such odd,
unpredictable motion, or just lying still, folded up on itself, a
little warm, patiently gathering strength for some new movement? I
wonder about the world in which this creature lives. I wonder more
what it knows about our world.
The
madness of the puppet. It lies along a line or spectrum of things. It
might be a very ordinary form of madness. The madness lies in the
hidden movements of the hand, the curious impulse and skill by which
a person’s hand can make itself into the animating impulse, the
intelligence or soul, of an inanimate object—it is an extension of
that more basic wonder by which we can let this one part of our body
become a separate, articulate whole, capable of surprising its owner
with its movements, the stories it tells. I call it madness, but it
is perhaps better called an ecstasy. It lies in the hand’s power
and pleasure in giving itself over to the demands of the object, our
curious will to make the object into an actor, something capable of
gesture and voice. What strikes me here is the need for a made thing
to tell a story, to become a vehicle for a voice, an impulse of
character—something very old, and very early. The thing acquires a
life.
The
madness will also have something to do with the made puppet itself,
so often a crude and disproportioned thing, with its staring eye and
leering teeth, its tiny hands, the impossible red or blue of its
face, barely human in form, like a monster or mistake, a fetus or a
corpse. The madness lies in the wild actions that come to belong to
that object, that seem, indeed, proper to it: its rhythmic dance, its
talent for trickery, its speed of attack, its delicate way with a
stick or bit of paper, its skill in disappearance and reappearance.
Characters human and inhuman, close to objects. In this theater, what
looks like a wooden block or ball, a bundle of rags, a thin
silhouette of perforated leather, assumes a voice and personality. In
the right hands, a mere strip of paper moved by a string, yielded to
accidents of air, can do it. All acquire intentions, what looks like
will, even if this belongs to things we think can have no will. All
acquire different souls and spirits, all have different stories to
tell. They are able to enter into our histories, and reenact our
histories.
Then
there is the intense, often mysterious quality of the audience’s
fascination with these wooden actors, and with the seen and unseen
face of the puppet show. Fear there can be, also an unsettling
delight, the trace of the intimacy we can achieve with alien things.
The playwright Paul Claudel, in 1926, described a puppet show he saw
in Japan, though it sounds as much like a performance of the French
clown puppet Guignol: “And behind—it’s so amusing to keep well
hidden and make someone come to life; to create that little doll that
goes in at the eyes of every spectator to strut and posture in his
mind! In all those rows of motionless people only this little goblin
moves, like the wild elfish soul of all of them. They gaze at him
like children, and he sparkles like a little firecracker!” There is
something in the puppet that ties its dramatic life more to the
shapes of dreams and fantasy, the poetry of the unconscious, than to
any realistic drama of human life. That is part of its uncanniness,
that its motions and shapes have the look of things we often turn
away from or put off or bury. It picks out our madness, or what we
fear is our madness. It creates an audience tied together by
childlike if not childish things. It is amazing, the scream of
children trying to warn Punch that there is a crocodile hiding behind
him, a creature who disappears instantly below stage every time that
Punch turns around to catch a glimpse of him. Keeping watch on the
audience that watches a puppet show is often part of the fascination.
François Truffaut’s 1959 film The
400 Blows,
as an interlude in its picture of wounded childhood, contains a
stunning few minutes of footage showing the faces of an audience of
young French children watching a puppet show of Red Riding Hood, each
face distinct yet part of a unified sea of wonder. They are wildly
absorbed by what they see, crying out warnings (“Le loup! Le
loup!”), elated even by their fear for the puppet heroine set upon
by a puppet wolf.
Puppet
theater has its ambivalences. It can produce less touching forms of
fright, a sense of mere creepiness, not to mention a sense of its
being something trivial or contemptible. One of Goethe’s Venetian
Epigrams
(1796) suggests a more violent response: “I fell in love as a boy
with a puppet show; / It attracted me for a long time until I
destroyed it.” That too is part of the madness I would describe. It
is not quite the same as the act of “putting away childish things.”
There’s something so loaded, so odd about the very word “puppet”
in English that it can’t help but evoke divided responses in those
who hear it, even those who are themselves involved in the art. The
word derives from the Latin pupa,
for little girl or doll, a word still used in entomology to describe
the mysterious, more passive middle stage of an insect’s
metamorphosis, as the larva is covered in a chrysalis, and awaits
reemergence as a winged thing. Such an analogy has some resonance,
and yet the word “puppet,” itself a diminutive, still sounds a
little like a child’s word, as well as being a word for a child.
Used metaphorically, it gets applied to a thing or person both
insignificant and subjected to the power of others—not a word
people will readily apply to themselves. In Shakespeare’s time,
“puppet”—sometimes “poppet”—might be an endearment, but
also a term used to derogate both actors and servile politicians, or
to mark a woman as a painted seductress, even a prostitute. “Fie,
fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!” cries Helena to Hermia in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream,
thinking she has stolen her lover. English Protestant reformers
employed the word to mock the Roman Catholic use of images and
relics, the ceremony of the Mass, indeed, the whole architecture of
Catholic ritual. The homemade dolls found in the possession of
accused witches, allegedly used to inflict harm by magic, were also
called puppets.
This
book invites a double vision. The puppet and the idea of the puppet
move together here, the actual and imagined, or unknown, puppet, the
visible and invisible puppet. I want to trace the sources of the
theatrical fascination of puppets, their peculiar powers and limits
onstage, but also to touch on broader questions about artistic
making. Hence it is that when I describe certain aspects of puppet
theater—its ardent indecorums, its talent for metamorphosis, its
dismemberings of language and transformations of scale, its
materiality, its commitment to giving life to the unliving, its
negotiations with death and survival, its love of secrecy and
shadows, its literalness, its fundamental strangeness—I want also
to convey how these find mirrors in other forms of poetry and
fiction, as well as in dramatic art more generally. If the wooden
actor holds up a stark mirror to actors of flesh and blood, it also
offers a resonant image of our broader relation to the words we
speak, their forms of life and death, our relation to material
objects, as well as to our own bodies. This is why my descriptions of
actual puppet shows are so often folded together here with thoughts
about imaginary and figurative puppets, or puppetlike beings, that
appear in writings by, among others, William Shakespeare, Miguel de
Cervantes, Emily Dickinson, Carlo Collodi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz
Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Russell Hoban, Seamus Heaney, and Philip Roth,
in the work of visual artists such as Joseph Cornell or Paul Klee, or
in a film of Ingmar Bergman’s. In their works we glimpse the
fictive puppet as quester, soldier, trickster, survivor, child,
angel, animal, and ghost, even as puppeteer. All of these connections
help me to take the measure of the puppet as a metaphor of human
making, a form of life. A wooden head opens up strange worlds.
Text by Kenneth Gross
Text by Kenneth Gross
Excerpted
from pages 1-10 of Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life by Kenneth
Gross, published by the University of Chicago Press. ©2012 by The
University of Chicago
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Gra(m)mary of Puppetry
Five
years on from his last show at Monitor, we are now pleased to
announce the opening of Gra(m)mary of Puppetry, new solo show by the
Greek artist Kostis Velonis in our space. The artistic research
conducted by Velonis takes its cue from a complex and illustrious
artistic heritage spanning Constructivism to Bauhaus, besides drawing
on the radical artistic currents of the late-Sixties and and
different subspecies of Democracy.
With Gra(m)mary of
Puppetry Velonis has charted a philosophical outlook on the world of
theatre. Influences from the Classical world, where theatre was one
of the major forms of expression and communication, have been worked
into an exquisitely contemporary artistic lexicon to develop a kind
of psychological ‘atlas’ that Velonis has constructed directly in
the gallery, and which sheds light on the nature of object
theatre.
Through drawings, photographic prints and sculptures
Velonis offers a new interpretation of theatrical performance in
which the marionette – in its role of object and storyteller –
takes on a wider significance of a strongly political and social
nature.
The structure of the artist’s vision – intended almost
as a writing process – is used to trace the various stages of the
representation together with the almost magical rules that guide it.
The delicately executed drawings emphasise the genesis of the
marionette -or object moved with the aid of strings (from the greek
neurospaston). The collages instead stand as a kind of visual
reference road map (Puppet Cosmogony) conceived as an assemblage of
documents that deal with certain paradoxes and extremes in object
theatre. Within the large spaces of the gallery, the humble, recycled
materials of which they are made underscore the apparent abstract
nature of the small-scale sculptures. As it turns out, the scale of
the objects is a necessary requisite for an unadorned and minimal
stage in which the actor – or marionette – is able to move and
freely express him/itself.
Kostis
Velonis,
Gra(m)mary
of Puppetry
Opening Thursday March
28th
6-9 pm
Monitor
Gallery, Rome
Until
May 4th.
Labels:
exhibition,
my stuff,
Puppetry,
sculpture
Sunday, March 17, 2013
The Continuous Moment
The
eerie technocratic world of Superstudio, taken from The Continuous
Moment
series 1969. Objects float in a transcendental void of crisp glass
and the quiet hum of infinity.
Don’t worry – the endless
grid is a metaphor for a social state where all of humanity is
constantly connected to a web of information, energy and even matter.
Labels:
architecture,
Garden architecture,
modernities
Vaquero
The
cowboy stands beneath
a
brick-orange moon. The top
of
his oblong head is blue. The sheath
of
his hips
is
too.
In
the dark brown night
your
cowboy stands quite still.
His
plain hands are crossed.
His
wrists are embossed white.
In
the background night is a house,
has
a blue chimney top,
Yi
Yi, the cowboy's eyes
are
blue. The top of the sky
is
too.
Edward
Dorn
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Collage wa
Labels:
collage,
design display,
modernities
Silent Auction
Αθανασιάδη
Αλεξάνδρα,Αιδίνης Διαμαντής. Aκριθάκης
Αλέξης (δωρεά Kων/νου Νομικού),Αναλίζα
Αζά,Αντσακλή Ζέττα,Αντωνόπουλος
Άγγελος,Αργυράκης Μίνως (δωρεά Μαρίνας
Ηλιάδη),Αλεξάνδρα Αργύρη,Αυλάμης
Αλέξης,Βακιρτζής Γιώργος (δωρεά Μαρίνας
Ηλιάδη),Βασιλοπούλου Κλημεντίνη,Βαφειά
Κατερίνα,Βελώνης Κωστής,Βενιέρη
Λυδία,Βεργίτση Ειρήνη,Βερνίκου
Μαρίνα,Βιοπούλου-Βουλγαράκη Στέλλα,Βουρλούμη
Ειρήνη,Βουρλούμη Ειρήνη,Βουρλούμης
Ανδρέας,Γεωργίου Αλέξανδρος,Γεωργίου
Απόστολος,Γλύκα Κατερίνα,Γουζέλη
Ιωάννα,Δεληβοριά Μυρτώ,Δρακούλη
Ίρις,Zarikian Nany,Ζουράρη Ιοκάστη,Ιγγλέση
Αγγελική,Καγκλής Τζουλιάνο,Κάλμπαρη
Χριστίνα,Καμπόλης Διονύσης,Καραμανώλης
Στέλιος,Καρβούνη Καλλιόπη,Καρέλλα
Μαρίνα,Κασιμάτη Πωλίνα,Κατσάμπα
Αθηνά,Καχραμάνογλου Μαρία,Κοντογιώργου
Μαρία,Κορδάκης Γιώργος,Κοτζαμάνη
Αλεξάνδρα,Κόττης Γιάννης,Κουμαντάρου
Ευγενία,Κυριακούλης Αντώνης (δωρεά
Μαρίνας Ηλιάδη),Μακρή Μυρτώ,Μανέτας
Μίλτος,Μανουσάκης Μιχάλης,Μαράκη
Μαρία,Μαργέλλου Ηλιοδώρα,Μαρτίνου
Ελεάννα,Μάτσα Αλίνα,Μελά Ναταλία,Μελετοπούλου
Στέλλα,Μερμίρης Ταξιάρχης,Μηλιαρέση
Όλγα,Μυρογιάννη Μαργαρίτα,Παναγιωτοπούλου
Αλίκη,Παναγιώτου Ραλλού,Παπαδημητρίου
Καίτη,Παπαδόπουλος Λεωνίδας,Παπαδόπουλος
Πάνος,Παπαηλιάκης Ηλίας,Πετροπούλου
Σοφία,Πολέμη Brigitte,Ρασσιά Έλλη,Ρόκος
Στέφανος,Ρουσσοπούλου Λέα, Σάμιος
Παύλος, Σβολόπουλος Νίκος, Σενίκογλου
Ναταλί,Σούλου Χριστάννα,Στεφάνου Νίκος
(δωρεά Ευγενίας Κουμαντάρου),Σπανούδη
Λούλα,Τζάννης Αλέξανδρος,Τριανταφυλλίδη
Ήρα,Τσαγκάρης Πάνος,Τσιτσόπουλος
Φίλιππος,Τσόλκα Μαριαλένα,Τσουκαλά
Αλεξάνδρα,Τσουκαλά Ναταλία,Φαμέλης
Παναγιώτης,Φραγκουδάκη Μαρία,Φωτιάδης
Φίλιππος,Χριστοδούλου Αντωνάκης,Πλουμή
Τούλα,De Chirico Giorgio,Gregos Theopsy,Warren Christina,Woozy.
Art of Giving, Silent Auction
Oργάνωση :Μη Κερδοσκοπικό Σωματείο Δεσμός
Τετάρτη, 3 Απριλίου 2013 στην Αθηναΐδα
Labels:
exhibition
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
A Sentence
The
maw that rends without tearing, the maggoty claw that serves you,
what, my baby buttercup, prunes stewed softly in their own juices or
a good slap in the face, there's no accounting for history in any
event, even such a one as this one, O, we're knee-deep in this one,
you and me, we're practically puppets, making all sorts of fingers
dance above us, what do you say, shall we give it another whirl, we
can go naked, I suppose, there's nothing to stop us and everything
points in that direction, do you think there will be much music later
and of what variety, we've that, at least, now that there's plenty of
pieces to be gathered by the wool-coated orphans and their musty
mums, they'll put us in warm wicker baskets, cover us with a cozy
blanket of snow, and carry us home, walking carefully through the
rubble and around the landmines, or visa versa, poor little laddy's
lost his daddy, pauvre
unminted lamb, you'd give him a chuck on the chin if you still had
arms, sure as I'd pitch myself into a highland fling for the sake of
the neighbors, but they say or at least said once and if we're very
quiet we might hear them again, that all of us will reune with all of
us when the time comes, our bits and pieces will cling-a-ling to our
cores like fillings rag a magnet, think how big we'll be then, we'll
spread from sea to see, sky's the limit for philomel and firmament,
and there will be Indians and buffalo and a hero's welcome, I've
always wanted a hero's welcome, it's due, said the capitulate
archduke, doubtless they'll put us in long black cars and someone's
sure to have a picnic, that's the beauty of it, someone's always sure
to have a picnic, and we'll laugh when they salt and pepper their
hard eggs and be glad to lend our long bones for rude goalposts,
what's that, that sound, nothing, you say, right again, nothing walks
heavily, nothing stomps about, the big turd, carding its beard with a
baleen comb, and lovingly licking the mirror in the eggcup, it fixes
red-hot ingots to its ears and pirouettes in a pineneedle shawl,
showing itself off to one and all, it's a braggart and a pimp, this
nothing, ups the short hairs nonetheless, doesn't it, but that's all
right, continue making your stew, sun's swallowed and we've plenty of
hours to morn, assuming there's to be another dawn, I'm keeping the
faith on that one, my friend, my comrade, my comparison, why I'd
light a candle and pray, if I weren't afraid of snipers, still, a
campfire seems safe enough, at least for cooking, no one'd be so mean
as to shoot a man before his supper, what's the sport in that, better
to let a body leisure and sup, knowing there's no time to digest, for
it's utter contempt you're after, that and the absolute beauty of
wasted sweet butter, it was important that the last bite taste
better, though saltless, we've St. Maladroit to clap for that, the
silvertongued one, he who proved birds traitors for singing what must
be sung, thoughtless, dolce,
thoughtless, still, perhaps the next one will use a beer batter, make
a nice soda bread, slather it with the whitest spread, that's good
shooting, my darling, right between hiccoughs, speaking of which,
how's your arm, you complained earlier, though quietly, you didn't
want to disturb my concentration, I was squeezing oranges into cans
and setting up camp, there's so much to do before a battle, don't you
agree, put shoes into trees and try our hair in different styles, I
thoughtfully chalked some names and addresses on our backs to
facilitate false identification of our remains, unfortunately it
makes us better targets...
Vanessa
Place from Dies: A Sentence, 2006
Monday, March 11, 2013
The Cubies
The Cubies’ ABC was published in the aftermath of the celebrated Armory Show of 1913, the largest and most sensational exhibition of modern art held in the United States. Designed to appear as little more than a children’s ABC book—where three pyramidal-shape characters take readers on a tour of the modern works included in the exhibition—the actual purpose of The Cubies’ ABC was to introduce the newest manifestations of contemporary art to the public in a humorous and highly ingeniously fashion. Thus the letter “A” is for “Art, Archipenko and Anatomics,” “B” is for “Braque and “Beauty as Brancusi views it,” “C” is for “Color Cubistic ad libitum,” and “D” is for “Duchamp, the Deep-Dyed Deceiver,” whose Nude Descending a Staircaseis rendered in the illustration as an accordion in need of repair. The rhyming text in the book was written by Mary Mills Lyall, and the drawings were by her husband, Earl Harvey Lyall (an architect who had studied at Amherst College, Columbia University and, for a brief period, in Paris). When The Cubies’ ABC appeared in 1913, The Dial declared it “the oddest little color book of the season,” telling readers that “the book must be seen and read to be appreciated.”
Source: http://www.francisnaumann.com/index.html
|
Labels:
exhibition,
Exhibition Design,
illustration,
modernities
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Yours in Solidarity
The
extensive art project Yours in Solidarity that began in 2010,
investigates the contemporary history of anarchism and is presented
for the first time at New Art Space Amsterdam (NASA) in its entirety.
Nicoline van Harskamp creates a complex and resounding portrait of
anarchism’s supporters through analyses of the correspondence
archive of the late Dutch anarchist Karl Max Kreuger, now housed in
the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam.
From 1988 until 1999, Kreuger corresponded by post with approximately
400 fellow anarchists worldwide. Through the study of respective
political observations and handwriting analysis of some 60 letter
writers, Nicoline van Harskamp re-activated the proponents’ life
stories. Using actors of the relevant age and nationality, in a fully
staged meeting of international correspondents, the artist suggests
what would happen if they were to meet today. The resulting work is a
reflective archive of Nicoline van Harskamp’s notes and copied
extracts of over 1000 letters including video documentation of
individual working sessions with actors and a film.
As
in other recent works like New Latin (2010) and Any other Business
(2009-2012), Nicoline van Harskamp addresses the power of the spoken
word and its ability to shape thought and political ideals. Yours in
Solidarity also charts a turning-point in the neo-liberal context
following the demise of post-war idealism after 1989, whilst drawing
reference to our current anti-authoritarian imperative and mainstream
anti-capitalist opposition. The work, named after a much-used
anarchist sign-off, directly engages the numerous theories of
anarchism that are still critical today and its definition of
paradoxical pairs such as scepticism and dogmatism; affinity and
identity; direct action and symbolic action.
Reading
Anarchism
Throughout
the course of the exhibition an intensive programme of talks under
the name Reading Anarchism is organised to take place on Wednesday
evenings. In the closing-week of the exhibition a full public
reading-day will be held with invited speakers. Guests with an
affinity for the subject are invited to prepare a presentation on a
book or article from the online archive of anarchist writing.
Speakers include: Michnea Mircan, Geert Lovink, Mariko Peters, Ahmet
Öğüt, Charles Esche, Elena Bajo, Nienke Terpsma, Frans Bromet, Bea
de Visser and Jan Ritsema.
Reading
Anarchism encourages audience members to read the same texts and
inspire further reading. The names of the guests and their chosen
book titles will be announced online and in the exhibition space. All
titles will be available as a laser printed booklet at NASA, and can
be downloaded for free at www.theanarchistlibrary.org.
For
further information about the exhibition and updates on Reading
Anarchism’s dates, guests and literature go to www.nasaonline.net.
Opening
Saturday 9 March.
Labels:
archive,
exhibition,
Social History
Friday, March 8, 2013
Text and Commentary
Labels:
design,
drawings,
manuals and Instructions
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
From "Vertigo"
“It
is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves attached
to it again”
-a
drawing by Vija Celmins
I
practice interruption to get used to it, get up to get the cup
and
then sit down, go out to look at the sign on the corner, sit
down,
open the book to 37, “Moon Surface [Luna 9],” close
it,
open my mouth to get used to what it says and then
in
some weathers, it’s offered up freely and you have to
cover
the books in plastic, remember to take it with you just in case
and
you have to be grateful not to think things up.
Her
surface drawings put one squarely on the moon
and
there’s nothing to take your mind off it, no one brings coffee,
and
she’s reminded of a scene where the actor talks about how
he’s
scared to leap off a balcony and then he finally leaps.
Someone
keeps coming to the door, someone makes a mark
like
graphite until it builds up slowly on the surface.
Martha
Ronk,“Vertigo,” 2007.
Hessian
Identity
and product designer Ben Pierrat
offers a complete brand identity for sale. His brand Hessian
comes with a name, website, diverse style elements, many logos and
all the other elements that make a good identity. The only thing the
buyer has to come up with is the product or service that the brand
wants to sale.
Under
Creative Commons License: Attribution
Non-Commercial
Training in hammering
Training in hammering from the Russian Central Institute of Work and its Methods and Means for Training Workers. Management engineering : The Journal of Production (New York) 4 , no 4 (april1923), 243. This photograph documents a typical training exercise at TsIT-in this case , a worker being instructed by a mannikin in the art of hammering. The mannikin's two left arms demonstrate the correct posture of the arm relative to the body at the start and conclusion of its swing. Mannikins, templates, jigs, training frames, and photo-cyclograms are often used at TsIT in the construction of unskilled workers in correct body postures and work motions.
Source : Maria Gough, The Artist As Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005.
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